Speaker 1: I'm starting off with another Rebecca Solnit quote because she's
Speaker 1: talking to me, guys. This isn't a piece about heroism.
Speaker 1: She said, institutional authorities often behave badly in disasters in
Speaker 1: part because they assume that the rest of us will
Speaker 1: behave badly in the power vacuum disasters bring on, and
Speaker 1: thus they too often turn humanitarian relief into aggressive policing,
Speaker 1: often in protection of property and the status quo, rather
Speaker 1: than disaster victims. But ordinary people generally behave magnificently, taking
Speaker 1: care of each other and improvising rescues in the conditions
Speaker 1: of survival, connecting with each other in ways they might
Speaker 1: not in everyday life, and sometimes finding in that connection
Speaker 1: something so valuable and meaningful that their stories about who
Speaker 1: they were and met and what they did shine with joy.
Speaker 1: That is, I found in disasters a window onto what
Speaker 1: so many of us really want and don't get. A
Speaker 1: need we hardly name or recognize, which she calls public love,
Speaker 1: the sense of meaning, purpose, power, belonging to a community, society,
Speaker 1: a city, a movement. Welcome to the podcast. That's all
Speaker 1: about the voice, which means it's all about power, Who
Speaker 1: has it, how we get it? How we sound when
Speaker 1: we have it. I'm your host, Samarrove, and this is
Speaker 1: permission to speak where we can throw all our best
Speaker 1: ideas about how to get ourselves heard into the pot
Speaker 1: and start. So today's episode we are bringing to you
Speaker 1: from our respective homes because the last few weeks since
Speaker 1: Quarantine started, we've been able to use episodes that we
Speaker 1: already have in the camp and now we are flying
Speaker 1: free and not in the I Heart studios and finding
Speaker 1: a our home studio madness. But what's glorious about it,
Speaker 1: besides the fact that we're in the comfort of our
Speaker 1: own homes obviously, is um It's given us a chance
Speaker 1: to think about what we really want to do next
Speaker 1: during this bizarre, bizarre time. And one thing that came
Speaker 1: up right away was a mail bag episode because we've
Speaker 1: gotten some great questions from people, and because really my
Speaker 1: intention with this podcast is to make sure that it's
Speaker 1: not just big, cool ideas about the voice and about power,
Speaker 1: but also deeply practical Micro's suggestions to help people in
Speaker 1: their regular, actual lives. And by the way, our regular
Speaker 1: lives are weird as buck right now, but we can
Speaker 1: still use this stuff because either you know, we're dealing
Speaker 1: with newfound issues over Zoom, or with our families, or
Speaker 1: however we're conducting quote unquote business right now, or we
Speaker 1: can use this strange time sort of outside of regular
Speaker 1: life to work on what really matters to us in
Speaker 1: terms of how we present in the world, so that
Speaker 1: when we are able to go back into public again,
Speaker 1: we're bringing a version of ourselves that feels more whole
Speaker 1: than we were bringing before. So I have my stunning
Speaker 1: friend and producer Katherine Burt Canton. I was gonna say
Speaker 1: with me in the studio metaphorically, when parkly with me
Speaker 1: in the studio, I can see you, I can see
Speaker 1: I know you. We're zooming, We're doing all the things
Speaker 1: cat him good morning. I think this would be an
Speaker 1: appropriate time to say top of the Morningtia. That is
Speaker 1: something just for all of you out there. UM that
Speaker 1: I quite often like to say to Samara and she
Speaker 1: looks at me and says, Kat, we're not doing we're
Speaker 1: not doing dialect for this for this podcast, and UM,
Speaker 1: I don't care. Today we are. Maybe this is the
Speaker 1: episode where I finally coach you on how to make
Speaker 1: that sound slightly more irish. Oh that was That was Australia.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, oh my ears are really losing their
Speaker 1: their touch. How can I not have known? No? That
Speaker 1: was there, goes Michelle, my next door neighbor, walking by
Speaker 1: walking her dog Taco. So yeah, Cat, tell people where
Speaker 1: you're recording from. Yeah, let's paint the picture real quick.
Speaker 1: So currently I am outside of my beautiful apartment in
Speaker 1: my Toyota Prius with a podcast studio that we've set
Speaker 1: up inside of it. Mark, our engineer producer, and my
Speaker 1: husband is inside Mark. Can we get a hello? Hello? Everyone?
Speaker 1: How are you doing this fine morning day? You might
Speaker 1: be able to hear trolls in the background, samaraw, can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about where you're I'm
Speaker 1: on the floor on a to be fair, on a
Speaker 1: pillow on the floor, leaning against a favorite blanket of
Speaker 1: mine that has cheetahs on it. I'll take a picture,
Speaker 1: I'll post it. It'll be great. And uh, I'm, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to get the sound of bounce and only the
Speaker 1: right ways and not the wrong ways with a little
Speaker 1: bit of a jerry rigged set up here, and trying
Speaker 1: to embrace how chill it is and how kind of
Speaker 1: bohemian I feel sitting on the floor a cross leg
Speaker 1: and doing this. Um. It's great. We're getting back to basics, guys.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of something I posted on the
Speaker 1: Permission to Speak pod um instagram feed earlier this week.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to read all of it, although you
Speaker 1: can go there to see it, but the last line
Speaker 1: is um. This is by a therapist, a licensed therapist,
Speaker 1: who says, when in the midst of trauma, just getting
Speaker 1: by emotionally and functionally is okay. Lowering expectations and being
Speaker 1: kind to yourself and is vital. I feel like our
Speaker 1: amazing podcast setups here are a perfect example of that. Alright,
Speaker 1: so let's dive into this party. So our first question
Speaker 1: is from Carly. She's an anesthesiologist and she is currently
Speaker 1: working in the ICU, and she wrote in saying, Hi,
Speaker 1: I love this podcast. You're doing an amazing job and
Speaker 1: I find it's so thought provoking. The episode was Shaunton
Speaker 1: made me cry. I was holding onto a toxic friend
Speaker 1: group and she helped me to admit to myself that
Speaker 1: I was allowed the space to know that I don't
Speaker 1: need their validation. I just thought that was beautiful. So
Speaker 1: her first question, though, is I've been thinking about this
Speaker 1: since the first episode. So I'm a physician and therefore
Speaker 1: I work with a lot of elderly patients. I've had
Speaker 1: mentors tell me in medical school that I need to
Speaker 1: lower my voice so that those with hearing lost, mostly
Speaker 1: elderly people, can hear me better. The reason is that
Speaker 1: we often lose our high frequency hearing first before a
Speaker 1: low frequency. But I'm starting to wonder if it's also
Speaker 1: a generational thing that a lower voice will be more
Speaker 1: healing to an elderly patient when I approached them as
Speaker 1: a medical authority. What are your thoughts on that. I
Speaker 1: wonder what this lower voice means, if that's about pitch
Speaker 1: or about volume, but it sounds like it's meant to
Speaker 1: be about pitch. I don't know about the losing the
Speaker 1: upper register, but I do know for everybody that when
Speaker 1: we're in a in a room with a lot of
Speaker 1: din a lot of you know, whether it's a party
Speaker 1: context or you know, a medical whatever, any any any
Speaker 1: room that has a lot of sound bouncing around, if
Speaker 1: we can go up a little bit, actually it cuts through,
Speaker 1: especially if you kind of consens what the general didn't
Speaker 1: sound in the room is if you can go a
Speaker 1: little above that it's a great way to be heard
Speaker 1: at a party, quite honestly, But what she's asking about
Speaker 1: is obviously more complicated than that, because there's also an
Speaker 1: element of care involved, right, And and what she's talking
Speaker 1: about is making sure that people who are older are
Speaker 1: really understanding what she's saying. And this is truly about communication,
Speaker 1: right And my feeling about that is there's a few things.
Speaker 1: One we often and I think she has a question
Speaker 1: coming up about masks right now. If everybody's wearing a mask.
Speaker 1: There's a second level of this, but it just in general,
Speaker 1: if we're approaching people who are hard of hearing, what
Speaker 1: we can do is remember that we I mean, this
Speaker 1: sounds ridiculous, but we can remember that we have mouths,
Speaker 1: and like we're often thinking about the sound just coming
Speaker 1: out from like the back of you know, from our
Speaker 1: throat out, but our lips. The amount that we actually
Speaker 1: what they say in the acting world is use your consonants.
Speaker 1: The amount that we actually can use our mouth to
Speaker 1: make sure that we're communicating our thoughts is so much
Speaker 1: more than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. We actually
Speaker 1: do use our mouth like that. If we really know
Speaker 1: that we need to be heard if it's the seventh
Speaker 1: time that somebody has, you know, misunderstood us, and we're
Speaker 1: like no, What I'm trying to say is suddenly we realize, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have all these tools at my disposal. I'll use them.
Speaker 1: But but maybe in this context it would be helpful
Speaker 1: to know that you don't have to wait for the
Speaker 1: seventh time, right, you can actually just say to yourself,
Speaker 1: what can I do to make sure that I actually
Speaker 1: you use my lips, I use my tongue, I actually
Speaker 1: am communicating the thought. And so Carly's in her residency
Speaker 1: right now, so she's really trying to set the tone,
Speaker 1: you know, during this wild time with COVID and having
Speaker 1: to be more protected, but also moving forward as a
Speaker 1: female physician and using her voice and standing in her power.
Speaker 1: And so she has a few questions here which I love.
Speaker 1: So the next one is, I've been told by multiple
Speaker 1: people that I have a soft voice, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of that has to do with my constantly
Speaker 1: being told by society to only take up so much space.
Speaker 1: As you have said in many episodes. But I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you would like to comment on my projection
Speaker 1: a little, maybe some tips and how to make a
Speaker 1: soft voice heard without feeling like I'm shouting or any
Speaker 1: other thoughts that you have on that. I love this,
Speaker 1: and you know, without having her in front of me,
Speaker 1: I can't tell her exactly what the cure all is.
Speaker 1: But in general, for people, yeah, breathing makes a huge difference.
Speaker 1: And breathing doesn't just mean like hyperventilating. It means using
Speaker 1: the extra space that we have with our ribs expand,
Speaker 1: ending with the stuff underneath our ribs expanding. If we
Speaker 1: can get that far down, which sometimes like yoga, running
Speaker 1: around the block like helps our body remember like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know how to breathe myself, I remember, you know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But it's not just about the breathing.
Speaker 1: It's about the fact that when the breathing comes through
Speaker 1: our vocal cords, it vibrates in a way that suggests confidence,
Speaker 1: and if you don't breathe like that, it does just
Speaker 1: feel a lot lighter, like you're just cutting yourself off
Speaker 1: from your power supply, and that is a way to communicate.
Speaker 1: I think having a soft voice has its benefit, but
Speaker 1: working on what is it to get this sound out,
Speaker 1: I think is something that she could do, like completely
Speaker 1: in the privacy of her own home, and maybe this
Speaker 1: is the perfect time to do it when we're all,
Speaker 1: you know, literally always in the privacy of her own home,
Speaker 1: except when we have children staring at us while we're
Speaker 1: trying to go but working on um moving around a
Speaker 1: little bit like this is going to sound very like
Speaker 1: acting school, but really it just works for absolutely everybody
Speaker 1: because we all have bodies. But you know, moving around
Speaker 1: and actually making your body kind of vibrate a little
Speaker 1: like like dancing or just like like bouncing a little
Speaker 1: bit on your on your toes and while while breathing
Speaker 1: and just doing like a ha sound, you'll end up
Speaker 1: with like U, which sounds crazy, but what it really
Speaker 1: is is saying like, oh, my body has other ways
Speaker 1: of making sound come out of my mouth. Because it
Speaker 1: sounds like what she's talking about is just patterns, right,
Speaker 1: that she's habits that she's fallen into for completely understandable reasons.
Speaker 1: But what we can do in the privacy of our
Speaker 1: own home that we then can sort of build up
Speaker 1: to the confidence to do outside of our own home
Speaker 1: is I have other options. I have other options. Let
Speaker 1: me just try them out, let me see how weird
Speaker 1: they feel, and sit with that weirdness and become more
Speaker 1: and more comfortable with that weirdness over time, which is
Speaker 1: again not to say that softness is bad, but just
Speaker 1: to say you have more options at your disposal, and
Speaker 1: soft really works in certain context and then not in other's.
Speaker 1: And you really want to be as absolutely straightforward as
Speaker 1: possible when you want to be you know, Carly has
Speaker 1: another question, one more question. She says, sorry by the
Speaker 1: way that she has so many thoughts. Don't apologize, Carly, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. Oh my god. Eyes. So Carly's and
Speaker 1: her residency and she just finished her I See you rotation.
Speaker 1: She has a week off and then she's jumping into
Speaker 1: the COVID I see you. And so in the era
Speaker 1: of this coronavirus, we are all wearing masks at the hospital.
Speaker 1: This has really created some disconnect and communication, and it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder how much we rely on lip reading
Speaker 1: to understand people. Additionally, it takes away a huge portion
Speaker 1: of facial expression, and I have found myself trying to
Speaker 1: use my eyes more dramatically to get my point across.
Speaker 1: There's a few things. One, yeah, masks, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole idea of um communication if we have all
Speaker 1: of our faculties, uh, is that we are thinking about matching,
Speaker 1: as it were, our body language, our tone of voice,
Speaker 1: and the content of what we're saying. We talked about
Speaker 1: this a little bit in the John Knaffinger interview. The
Speaker 1: dream is that those things feel like they're in alignment, right,
Speaker 1: that what you're saying and how you're saying it and
Speaker 1: what your body is doing are all telling the same story.
Speaker 1: When we suddenly don't have the use of our mouths,
Speaker 1: our tone of voices is maybe really muffled, then you know,
Speaker 1: what we have is the content of what we're saying
Speaker 1: in our body language. So what she's talking about is like,
Speaker 1: you know, using eyes a little bit more. Obviously that
Speaker 1: can feel a little crazy making, but to the extent
Speaker 1: that that works, yeah, I mean, compensating is what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here. The other thing though, content wise, in
Speaker 1: a fast moving situation where there's like, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of what we're all reading about that's happening on
Speaker 1: the floor of these you know, hospitals, obviously, just do
Speaker 1: what's absolutely necessary to get the information across, whether it's
Speaker 1: just about literally being louder to get through the mask
Speaker 1: or whatever. But if what we're talking about is these
Speaker 1: nuanced moments when she really wants to reach out to
Speaker 1: another human and make them feel heard. I think it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of the consonant stuff that I was
Speaker 1: talking about before, mixed with actually using phrases that maybe
Speaker 1: you've practiced ahead of time, stuff like you know, you
Speaker 1: can't see my mouth right now, but if you could,
Speaker 1: you would know that, right. I mean, we can just
Speaker 1: come up with stuff to acknowledge the weirdness of this
Speaker 1: moment that then doesn't feel like should I say something
Speaker 1: or shouldn't I They don't know I'm smiling, they don't know.
Speaker 1: You know, we can do what we can't, even if
Speaker 1: it's just to say I have a mask on, but
Speaker 1: if I didn't, you'd better understand what I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: which is you know. Um. The other thing is all
Speaker 1: of us have experienced mask wearing at this point. It
Speaker 1: is so it is so weird feeling, right, but it
Speaker 1: is something we can practice. I mean, like, even if
Speaker 1: we wanted to, like have a FaceTime date with our
Speaker 1: best friend and both wear masks for two minutes, I mean,
Speaker 1: not for longer than that, because you know, one of
Speaker 1: the dreams One of the benefits of actually doing FaceTime
Speaker 1: is that we're not sharing terms, but you know, literally
Speaker 1: that's it's kind of a ridiculous and delightful exercise to
Speaker 1: put a mask on for two minutes with your best
Speaker 1: friend and see, like, how do I communicate? We can
Speaker 1: turn that into a good game. I mean, I'd be
Speaker 1: interested if anybody wanted to try it and let me know,
Speaker 1: like do you find what do you find about how
Speaker 1: much more eyes or eyebrows you use? Or do you
Speaker 1: not need to? Does it turn out you don't need to,
Speaker 1: because actually, you know, we are much better communicators than
Speaker 1: we think we are. You know, just see what happens
Speaker 1: and see what you're getting from the person that you're
Speaker 1: talking to as well as what you're getting from your
Speaker 1: own you know, internal signals well. And I think also, Carly,
Speaker 1: that's such a thoughtful question. The fact that you're actually
Speaker 1: you care enough about your patients to want to make
Speaker 1: them feel grounded and heard and connect with them during
Speaker 1: this time. That alone, in itself is such a gift
Speaker 1: that you're giving to them and that you carry with
Speaker 1: you and to remember that when you're going in. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are real difficult times and it's difficult to relay
Speaker 1: news to patients and to make them feel at ease
Speaker 1: during this time, and the fact that you're taking that
Speaker 1: into consideration is is really beautiful. And also if anyone
Speaker 1: out there wants to create some sort of clear mask,
Speaker 1: maybe that would be helpful. That's that's what we need
Speaker 1: to spend our money on right now. But it does
Speaker 1: also make me think of what you were just saying,
Speaker 1: which is true, uh and beautiful. It makes me think
Speaker 1: of the body language component as well. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was talking about facial expression, but obviously our actual bodies.
Speaker 1: You know, we we can all do things to seem
Speaker 1: more open and to see more closed, and we all
Speaker 1: we we sort of know generally socially that like crossing
Speaker 1: our arms in front of our in front of our
Speaker 1: bodies is a bit of a closed off gesture. Also
Speaker 1: totally acceptable to do when you're feeling closed off or
Speaker 1: when you want to protect yourself. So I am not
Speaker 1: saying there's anything wrong with it, but I am saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, an awareness of what we're doing with our
Speaker 1: body is another element in in communicating to people who
Speaker 1: you really want to get through too. A six ft
Speaker 1: lean in um Okay. Our next question is from Sally.
Speaker 1: Sally is a loud woman. I've always been called loud.
Speaker 1: I have professionally been shamed for being loud. I made
Speaker 1: fun of for being loud. If anyone I consider a
Speaker 1: friend or family member calls me loud or tells me
Speaker 1: to pipe down, I get so sad and so frustrated.
Speaker 1: The kicker is that I'm really not that loud. I'm
Speaker 1: not yelling or shouting or even and straining my voice.
Speaker 1: This is my natural volume. But I've been shamed for
Speaker 1: it from my entire life. That's my vocal drama. God,
Speaker 1: let's take a second for Sally. I hear you. I
Speaker 1: mean there's there's two different there's two different things going
Speaker 1: on here, and I don't know, you know, without knowing
Speaker 1: her better, which which it is, or maybe it's both.
Speaker 1: But first of all, I just want to acknowledge for
Speaker 1: everybody listening in, who's like, is that me? You know,
Speaker 1: A lot a lot of us are A lot of us,
Speaker 1: I should say, deal with what Carly was talking about
Speaker 1: in terms of being soft, but a lot of us
Speaker 1: are the opposite. We've overcompensated or we've just compensated, and
Speaker 1: people have told us our whole lives that were too much,
Speaker 1: too big, too loud, right, all the things, and who knows,
Speaker 1: who knows if that's because we're actually filling up the
Speaker 1: space more than we need to, or that we are
Speaker 1: just not what you know. Historically society deems a good
Speaker 1: woman to be. So for all of us who heard
Speaker 1: something in what Sally just said, you know, I just
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge that and that we're all, um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of us, is what I want to say.
Speaker 1: I'm one of them. I'm one of you Seally. The
Speaker 1: other thing, though, is it sounds, from the way that
Speaker 1: she's written this like she really has a trigger around this,
Speaker 1: a completely understandable one. It sounds like it's been a
Speaker 1: lifelong thing. But I wonder if that stopped her from
Speaker 1: actually exploring a little bit with curiosity. Why it is
Speaker 1: that people are saying that. Is it because the content
Speaker 1: of what you're saying is unpleasant, and you know what,
Speaker 1: people can fucking deal with it because you know you're
Speaker 1: the boss. Or is it that you are pushing too
Speaker 1: much out, whether it's you know, content or emotion or
Speaker 1: just sound, but that feeling of pushing which may be
Speaker 1: pushing through these this sort of scar tissue of years
Speaker 1: and years and years and years of people saying this
Speaker 1: about you that that may very well just not literally
Speaker 1: not be helping you get what you want. So on
Speaker 1: the one hand, we can say you can embrace yourself
Speaker 1: and who you are. On the other hand, we can say,
Speaker 1: if you're doing things that feel out of joint with
Speaker 1: the room that you're in, with the people you're talking to,
Speaker 1: it's not helping you. And so I wonder if there's
Speaker 1: a little gentleness you can have with yourself around exploring
Speaker 1: what it is to actually just fill the space, to
Speaker 1: actually just throw the ball of thought to the person
Speaker 1: you're talking to, and not harder than it needs to
Speaker 1: be thrown, and not filling the space louder than it
Speaker 1: needs to be. And just wonder, you know, without short
Speaker 1: changing yourself or your ambitions or your heart. Uh, just
Speaker 1: wonder what else can I do here? What else can
Speaker 1: I do with all of the tools I have in
Speaker 1: my in my body to actually get myself heard? And
Speaker 1: then there's also this other side of it. There's something
Speaker 1: about teaching the people in your life. If you're interested
Speaker 1: in doing this exploration, teaching the people in your life
Speaker 1: that you're interested in exploring it and getting real feedback
Speaker 1: from them and saying basically creating a sense of allies
Speaker 1: ship up, saying I'd love you to help me figure
Speaker 1: out how to communicate better with you, because then we're
Speaker 1: all on the same team. Because there's something in that
Speaker 1: letter that feels very much me versus the world, and
Speaker 1: I so hear that. I mean, I so hear that,
Speaker 1: and my heart goes out to you. But I wonder
Speaker 1: if there's a reframe there where you can enroll people
Speaker 1: in your team to solve this problem. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it actually brings me to a question that I have
Speaker 1: myself lately that keeps coming up. As I've mentioned, I
Speaker 1: have an almost four year old son, Jack, who is
Speaker 1: dynamic and wonderful and vibrant, and with that, he speaks very,
Speaker 1: very loud. He has an amazing vocabulary and he uses
Speaker 1: his voice with power, and I'm proud of him for it.
Speaker 1: But it's loud, and quite often I find myself and
Speaker 1: my husband, but I feel it more so myself asking
Speaker 1: him to be quieter, to use his voice lower, because
Speaker 1: we live in an apartment, because we have neighbors. Because
Speaker 1: it's just sometimes annoying. It's and it's something that I
Speaker 1: find um becoming a broken record about. And I feel
Speaker 1: like with all this talk and working on this show
Speaker 1: that I don't want to damage him or or make
Speaker 1: him feel smaller or you know, what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do is ultimately just let him know that we can
Speaker 1: hear him, and he doesn't need to, you know, be screaming.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just solved it. That's exactly right. I
Speaker 1: think we can all, whether it's to our children or
Speaker 1: or to other people in our lives, we can find
Speaker 1: a way to reframe your being too loud. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wish people did that in Sally's life, because that's
Speaker 1: obviously not a helpful you know note that she keeps
Speaker 1: getting if they can reframe it in terms if we
Speaker 1: as parents in this case, can reframe it in terms
Speaker 1: of I can hear you. I'm listening, So if you're
Speaker 1: talking at a volume that really hits me but isn't
Speaker 1: too big, I can really hear you. When it gets
Speaker 1: too small or too big, I'm not able to hear
Speaker 1: it as well. I'm always thinking. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: a five year old and almost five year old. I'm
Speaker 1: always thinking in terms of like setting him up for
Speaker 1: success in using me as a model for like what
Speaker 1: other people in life will be like to him. So
Speaker 1: I'm always saying, like, how you that's so, that's what
Speaker 1: you want? How would you go about getting what you want?
Speaker 1: Which is another way of saying please, say please? Right,
Speaker 1: But but think helping him think in terms of the
Speaker 1: sort of logic of it rather than just the roat
Speaker 1: nous of it. So I think there might be something there.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it will work, you know, but
Speaker 1: something in terms of you're talking at a volume right now,
Speaker 1: that's not necessary if you're talking to me. If you're
Speaker 1: just wanting to make sound, that's cool. Maybe we should
Speaker 1: go outside for a little while. Like I can tell
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of energy to burn off, but
Speaker 1: if you're trying to communicate to me, uh, you can
Speaker 1: actually do it a lot quieter and then actually modeling
Speaker 1: as well, you know, we can model like I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of Like I mean, this will probably work
Speaker 1: on the mike because this mike is so good that
Speaker 1: I borrowed from my heart. But I do a lot
Speaker 1: of like can you hear me? Now? Can you still
Speaker 1: hear me? If you can hear me, then you don't
Speaker 1: have to talk that much louder than this, right, or
Speaker 1: even just like a little bit of a little bit
Speaker 1: of breath and vibration behind it, but really just showing it.
Speaker 1: And then it becomes game. You know, games, games are
Speaker 1: sometimes the solution and saying like can you match this
Speaker 1: this volume and as you said, and really want to
Speaker 1: emphasize this for my own child. Uh, We're not in
Speaker 1: the business of telling our kids to play small, but
Speaker 1: we are in the business of helping them understand that
Speaker 1: there are options, that their first way is not necessarily
Speaker 1: their best way, and that reading a room is a
Speaker 1: skill that they can work on even now. And you know,
Speaker 1: if they're in a quiet space with us, using only
Speaker 1: the energy necessary to get their point across and no lesson,
Speaker 1: no more is good communication, which is like a skill
Speaker 1: for life, it will help them get what they want
Speaker 1: from us, from whoever they interact with in the future. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and we'll be back with more.
Speaker 1: And we're back cats, Who do we have next? So
Speaker 1: this is our next question from don I do have
Speaker 1: a question related to the use of my voice in
Speaker 1: my job. I am a fundraiser, for a symphony orchestra,
Speaker 1: and I'm in my early twenties. Getting one point two
Speaker 1: million involves a lot of talking and meeting with folks
Speaker 1: who are three to four times my age. But to
Speaker 1: be successful in fundraising, they have to one like me
Speaker 1: and to connect with me, and then three somehow view
Speaker 1: me as a peer. Nobody wants to feel like they're
Speaker 1: donating a couple of grand and the person asking could
Speaker 1: be their grandchild. So there's like a lot going on there.
Speaker 1: But where it really comes to a head is when
Speaker 1: somebody is complaining and angry. What are your tips for
Speaker 1: tone and inflection where I can be firm with a
Speaker 1: lot of old as men and not lose my sense
Speaker 1: of self authenticity in dealing with them. Thanks in advance,
Speaker 1: and stay healthy, strength and warmth. You know, we talked
Speaker 1: about this and the John F Finger one as well.
Speaker 1: It's so important for especially young women to realize that
Speaker 1: we can be as strong as we want to be
Speaker 1: if we're also investing in how much we care about
Speaker 1: the people were talking to write when when strang um
Speaker 1: doesn't work so well. I mean, these are obviously huge
Speaker 1: generalizations and and everybody has to put their own, you know,
Speaker 1: cultural stamp on it, which is a much longer conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have it another time. But generally speaking,
Speaker 1: we can be firm. We can say no, that's not
Speaker 1: how it is, or I need you to listen to me.
Speaker 1: If we also add to it an element of I
Speaker 1: care about you and I want to make sure this
Speaker 1: works out okay for both of us. I sometimes call
Speaker 1: the strength and warmth. It's not a dichotomy. It's just
Speaker 1: like two completely different things that both can work at
Speaker 1: the same time as each other, or or an opposition.
Speaker 1: I think of those two things for women, especially um
Speaker 1: it may be more helpful to think of it as
Speaker 1: not strong and warm, but assured and assuring. So when
Speaker 1: we're assured right, we can invest ahead of time, maybe
Speaker 1: before having a difficult conversation. We can invest in thinking
Speaker 1: about the ways in which we trust ourselves. I did
Speaker 1: that one thing so well. I have this person who
Speaker 1: makes me feel great, right, all of those things that
Speaker 1: we really can This is not the same as like
Speaker 1: an affirmation into the mirror, where we're like looking into
Speaker 1: our eyes and saying I'm so great, I can do it.
Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes those works. Sometimes those make us feel
Speaker 1: more like a fraud. Right, It's not about saying like
Speaker 1: I'm the greatest. It's about really thinking about, like that
Speaker 1: time when that person said that, or that letter I
Speaker 1: kept because it made me feel great about myself. I
Speaker 1: can just go back to that in my mind or
Speaker 1: literally read it and let those feelings take over. Right.
Speaker 1: We there's this there's this um this idea of code switching.
Speaker 1: I've talked about a little bit on this show. It's
Speaker 1: it's a term that's used a lot in the African
Speaker 1: American community to talk about the ways that people have
Speaker 1: been systematically taught that they're sort of a white, white
Speaker 1: way to talk quote unquote, a white way to talk
Speaker 1: for job interviews, and then there's you know, a different
Speaker 1: way to talk at home so that people don't accuse
Speaker 1: you of putting on errors. There's a lot of complicated
Speaker 1: stuff in that, but the reality is that on a
Speaker 1: linguistic level, code switching is something everybody does. It's a
Speaker 1: way of describing the way that we talked to the
Speaker 1: briest at Starbucks versus the way we talked to our
Speaker 1: mom versus the way we talked to a friend who
Speaker 1: just had a terrible tragedy. We all know how to
Speaker 1: sort of switch gears and reflect the you know, person
Speaker 1: we're talking to and the tone that that that is
Speaker 1: required in order to get what we want in that situation,
Speaker 1: whether what we want is you know, a latte or
Speaker 1: to make them feel better. And if we invest I think,
Speaker 1: if we invest in thinking a little bit before a
Speaker 1: difficult conversation in um, God, that person makes you feel great,
Speaker 1: or that letter I got or that comment that I got,
Speaker 1: or looking at my dog's face or whatever it is
Speaker 1: makes me makes me connect with me, we can like
Speaker 1: kind of a little bit code switch that version of
Speaker 1: ourselves in to these conversations it seem a little difficult
Speaker 1: and might seem a little more antagonistic, so that we
Speaker 1: can work on that thing I talked about with uh Sally,
Speaker 1: a little bit of of um enrolling them into our team.
Speaker 1: If somebody's mad at us, it's not necessarily the easiest
Speaker 1: thing to say, I hear you, and we're going to
Speaker 1: solve this together. But it does seem like that's probably
Speaker 1: where the solution will lie in terms of the age thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much that's projecting versus real, but
Speaker 1: I wonder if it will be more helpful for her
Speaker 1: to reframe it as people love grandchildren. Right. So if yes,
Speaker 1: there is obviously an element of like, are you gonna
Speaker 1: take seriously a young woman on the phone who's asking
Speaker 1: for a lot of money? But I think you can
Speaker 1: bring in the assured in the assuring. The assuring half
Speaker 1: of it is saying I don't worry, it's going to
Speaker 1: be great, right. The assured is I know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. The assuring is I've got you, And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that kind of cuts across age. And if
Speaker 1: it doesn't, then you're dealing with an asshole. And I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, but you know, try to get as much
Speaker 1: money as you can out of him. You are the future.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. In fact, I will say this also,
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's in her twenties started a really,
Speaker 1: really awesome organization for young people, and she told me,
Speaker 1: I just feel like I'm too young. People are no
Speaker 1: one's going to take me seriously. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, considering that what you're starting to do is
Speaker 1: actually create a network for people your own age and
Speaker 1: talk to older people about trying to you know, sponsor
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, I was so overwhelmed by the
Speaker 1: fact that she took her greatest strength, which is that
Speaker 1: she is a true representative of that generation, and saw
Speaker 1: it as a weakness. And I think there's a lesson
Speaker 1: in that for all of us. All Right, we got
Speaker 1: a question from leanne Um. I feel like my speaking
Speaker 1: voice can be scratchy. It's not smooth with enough breath.
Speaker 1: I think it's nerves and stress. I think that I
Speaker 1: can sound good, but not always when I want to.
Speaker 1: I recorded a series of greeting on our organization's new
Speaker 1: phone system, and I really don't like how they sound.
Speaker 1: That's the scoop. Any tips, any tips there? It is
Speaker 1: very valuable, especially if you're doing a recording of your voice.
Speaker 1: Uh to um not feel like you're sort of only
Speaker 1: thinking about your own voice and and um sort of
Speaker 1: like hovering outside yourself, lost in time and space, but
Speaker 1: rather who you're talking to. As soon as we're actually
Speaker 1: connected to who we're talking to and why we're telling
Speaker 1: them this information, we we all we all get better.
Speaker 1: So that is part of it, right too, That is
Speaker 1: part of it. Another part of it is breathing. Another
Speaker 1: part of it. I was thinking about this with an
Speaker 1: earlier question. Um, but I'll say it here because it's
Speaker 1: valuable for her as well. You know, part of when
Speaker 1: our voice sounds scratchy. I mean, I will say some
Speaker 1: of that is, honestly just that the damage stuff that
Speaker 1: Dr Gupta was talking about. Like some of it's just
Speaker 1: inevitable from overuse, from yelling, from going out and partying whatever,
Speaker 1: so you know, give ourselves a little break. But some
Speaker 1: of it is a combination of what I was talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, with not breathing enough, combined with there are
Speaker 1: two main places that we resonate in order to make
Speaker 1: sound come out of us. And you know, go with
Speaker 1: me on this. Basically, there's an opening between the um
Speaker 1: bones in our face called our mask resonance. It's below
Speaker 1: our eyes. Uh. Maybe I'll post a little picture of
Speaker 1: this um next to our knows that you can feel it.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm putting my fingers on it right now, my my,
Speaker 1: my first two fingers. Uh. And it's a soft area
Speaker 1: and when you massage it, you can you often end
Speaker 1: up needing to blow your nose afterwards. So massaging this
Speaker 1: area with maybe a hum sound, uh, will open up
Speaker 1: this area. It worked, truly, I like already feel a difference.
Speaker 1: Um It's just a way to remind our body to
Speaker 1: vibrate in that area. And then you can also just
Speaker 1: put your fingers there and just feel, is am I vibrating? Um? Right? Uh?
Speaker 1: Mask resonance it helps with our penniness. Pinkiness is just
Speaker 1: a word that some of us used to just mean
Speaker 1: like that that that really present forward sound. The other
Speaker 1: place that we vibrate is our chest, our chest resonance,
Speaker 1: and that you can put your hand on your chest
Speaker 1: right now and talk, Hi, my name is and see
Speaker 1: if you vibrate and stereo. Typically, UM, women have more
Speaker 1: mask resonans and men have more chest resonance. Uh. The
Speaker 1: dream scenario is a is a perfect blend of the two,
Speaker 1: so that all sort of like all the parts of
Speaker 1: our body that can vibrate when we talk are all vibrating,
Speaker 1: and literally those sound waves are are leaving our body
Speaker 1: and landing on the people that we want to be
Speaker 1: talking to. UM. And what's interesting about it is that
Speaker 1: if we really do have too much mask resonance and
Speaker 1: not enough chest resonance. UM, here's my here's my example.
Speaker 1: If we don't have enough chest resonance, we do sound pingy,
Speaker 1: We sound very forward and present and present is good,
Speaker 1: but we do tend to have this sound where we
Speaker 1: sort of cut ourselves off from our sense of power.
Speaker 1: We're often not breathing. It's a good solution for not
Speaker 1: you know, taking up any space in the world. We're
Speaker 1: just right here. The opposite, and again, stereotypically this is
Speaker 1: this is a male thing. But you know, obviously many
Speaker 1: people are outliers for either of these. But if you
Speaker 1: don't have any mass resonance and your only chest resonance,
Speaker 1: you feel a little bit underwater. People don't quite know
Speaker 1: why you don't seem present, but you don't seem present.
Speaker 1: So ideally you have a blend of the two. That
Speaker 1: may be something that would be useful for her to
Speaker 1: practice before the next time that, you know, she has
Speaker 1: to speak in front of people or on recording. And
Speaker 1: there are some sort of simple exercises that mostly have
Speaker 1: to do with kind of jumping around and dancing and
Speaker 1: just like breathing at the same time and making sounds happen.
Speaker 1: There's basically only three things you need to do ever
Speaker 1: to warm yourself up vocally, three categories. The first one
Speaker 1: is to get yourself breathing, whether that is running around
Speaker 1: the block or you know, dancing to Beyonce or lying
Speaker 1: on your back on the floor and actually just trying
Speaker 1: to get your um body to sort of relax and
Speaker 1: and you know, actually use itself well about it then
Speaker 1: kind of get tight um. Then then the second thing
Speaker 1: is connecting breath to sound. So whether that's often that's
Speaker 1: like if you are lying down on the ground, then
Speaker 1: you start to get up, you start to roll yourself up,
Speaker 1: you start to move your body a little bit, huh.
Speaker 1: And then the final thing is articulators. That's your lips,
Speaker 1: your teeth, your tongue, your jaw. Just seeing, liked, I
Speaker 1: have some jaw attention? Okay, yeah, I'm a human, so
Speaker 1: I have show attention and seeing does your tongue have
Speaker 1: some tightness? Right? You can pull your tongue out. Some
Speaker 1: people even like to hold onto their tongue. Some people
Speaker 1: hate that totally fine other way. But if you hold
Speaker 1: onto your tongue and try to count to ten, none
Speaker 1: them right, you really realize that all those that your
Speaker 1: tongue is a huge muscle. It goes down to your
Speaker 1: neck and uh, and often it's it's really tightened the
Speaker 1: back and loosening that up gives you so much more
Speaker 1: flexibility and you know, ability to communicate with all of
Speaker 1: your tools at your disposal. So that's really it breathing
Speaker 1: into connecting it to sound, which can help with this
Speaker 1: mask in this chest resonance stuff if you're just moving
Speaker 1: around and vibrating a little bit, and you know, you
Speaker 1: can even tarzan uh all right, really getting sound into
Speaker 1: these places that sometimes it's just stuck and hasn't gone
Speaker 1: into for a while, and then connecting that with you know,
Speaker 1: abc D E right, So any of that stuff is
Speaker 1: going to put her in a better position than just
Speaker 1: not doing that stuff. You know, that's for all of us.
Speaker 1: This brings me to my next question from Karen. She says,
Speaker 1: how should we respond when a male coworker or supervisor
Speaker 1: treats us in a sexiest way but is either unaware
Speaker 1: or is choosing to be unaware of their actions. How
Speaker 1: should we coach our male coworkers on their problematic jargon? Yeah, girl,
Speaker 1: I hear you know. I mean, this is obviously a
Speaker 1: collective thing, and it's a bummer that, you know, it
Speaker 1: feels like an individual thing because you know, those of
Speaker 1: us who are alone in offices with people who don't
Speaker 1: look or sound like us. UM, you know, inevitably half
Speaker 1: like added on s on us to solve the problem
Speaker 1: or to suck it up, And that's a bummer, UM,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in really solving it, which you don't
Speaker 1: have to be, you know, I mean, you can also
Speaker 1: just like suck it up or leave the job or
Speaker 1: or you know, have a closet to scream in. But
Speaker 1: if you get to the point where you really are
Speaker 1: committed to doing something, UM, you know, everybody's office is different.
Speaker 1: If you have an ally who you know fits the
Speaker 1: description you're you're talking about, that's obviously the first person
Speaker 1: to talk to to get feedback from them on how
Speaker 1: to talk to the others. UM. But the main thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, Shaunta told such an amazing story about a
Speaker 1: woman who said something sort of accidentally racist, and it
Speaker 1: was Shaunta's decision whether or not to call that out UM.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, listen back to her episode
Speaker 1: to see how she dealt with it. But I think
Speaker 1: this strength and warmth thing really works in this context
Speaker 1: as well. Assured and assuring right finding UM an opportunity
Speaker 1: you know, to be very clear to say, like I'm
Speaker 1: going to I would like to gather a few of
Speaker 1: us together to talk about something that's really been making
Speaker 1: my workspace feel less productive for me, which you know
Speaker 1: obviously frames it like this is about work, and this
Speaker 1: is about all of us getting on the same page
Speaker 1: about how to make something the productive it can be,
Speaker 1: and then saying you may very well not be aware
Speaker 1: of it. And I'm you know, sort of like pleased
Speaker 1: for you that no one else has ever had to
Speaker 1: tell you this, that it must be nice, but um,
Speaker 1: there are certain ways that you're interacting with me that
Speaker 1: makes me feel like I can't bring my full self
Speaker 1: into the space, And if you're interested in what those are,
Speaker 1: I'd really like to tell you about them so that
Speaker 1: you can, you know, think about ways to make some changes.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you're appealing to people's like best selves,
Speaker 1: and if they're not interested in bringing their best selves
Speaker 1: to the table, you know, it's a it's a longer
Speaker 1: term process. And you know, the other thing I'll say
Speaker 1: is that conversation will go better if you've done all
Speaker 1: the other things I've talked about today. I guess beforehand,
Speaker 1: if you've danced it out, if you've worked on your breathing,
Speaker 1: if you've worked on speaking from a you know, in
Speaker 1: a way where it feels like the content and the
Speaker 1: body language and the tone of voice are all in alignment,
Speaker 1: because God, it's hard to have a difficult conversation, and
Speaker 1: especially in a work context because obviously, you know, there's
Speaker 1: certain intimacies and then certain elements of mistrust or of
Speaker 1: just lack of you know, being on the same page
Speaker 1: with people, and there's an element of, you know, my
Speaker 1: livelihood is at stake. So what you're saying is don't
Speaker 1: call them a sexist asshole. You can do that part
Speaker 1: to your friends as you're processing what you should say,
Speaker 1: you know, or you can, I mean whatever, like try that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, like really the point of
Speaker 1: use your voice to get what you want is like
Speaker 1: literally what works? I don't I'm not really interested in
Speaker 1: in what sounds like it would be flowery but won't work.
Speaker 1: You know, Like that's fine, try it out, go for
Speaker 1: you know, call people whatever you want. You know, I guess,
Speaker 1: But the reality is if what we're really trying to
Speaker 1: get what we want, then we're trying to be heard.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's all kinds of common ground lessons
Speaker 1: online you can look up like how to build common ground.
Speaker 1: Often it's about said the ground rules of we're all
Speaker 1: trying for the same thing. You know, your intention is
Speaker 1: to you know, your the random do that you work with.
Speaker 1: Your intention is to get this project done as efficiently
Speaker 1: and as you know, easily as possible. That's my intention too,
Speaker 1: So that it's not you know, you're a bad person,
Speaker 1: because look, so many of the dudes in our lives
Speaker 1: who are not as evolved as we'd like them to
Speaker 1: be are just products of their own ship right there,
Speaker 1: products of the same societal stuff we've had to deal with.
Speaker 1: So you know, yeah, it might be satisfying to call
Speaker 1: them out and say you're a sexy stasshole, but it
Speaker 1: probably will be more useful to say, I bet you
Speaker 1: want this to be as productive as possible. Me too.
Speaker 1: You know, here's something we could work on together, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that creates long term change instead of
Speaker 1: an immediate reactive response. And I will say also to
Speaker 1: bring it back to the Shanta story I started with.
Speaker 1: You know, the book White Fragility, which everybody who's not
Speaker 1: a person of color should read, is really valuable for
Speaker 1: holding up a mirror to the ways in which we
Speaker 1: all get fragile when called on our stuff. And I
Speaker 1: bet that there's a sort of a sideways way into
Speaker 1: talking to the sexist people in your life by reading
Speaker 1: that book and thinking about the ways that we can all, um,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of communicate in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: just ryle defensiveness right away, And with that, we're going
Speaker 1: to jump to a quick break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: just a minute. So we're back. This is a question
Speaker 1: from Nicole. She says, how do you deal with imposter syndrome?
Speaker 1: I was at a conference once and the woman who
Speaker 1: is the president, former president of Princeton University, who's the
Speaker 1: first woman president of any Ivy League school. She's like
Speaker 1: a decorated biologist, amazing woman. She raised like multiple billions
Speaker 1: of dollars for Princeton during her time there. Um was
Speaker 1: asked when she felt like she was enough, and it
Speaker 1: was on this stage in front of three thousand women
Speaker 1: at a luncheon where we were all sitting at like
Speaker 1: circular tables, and she her answer was this. She literally
Speaker 1: took the longest pause in the history of the world,
Speaker 1: and it was like the penny just dropped for all
Speaker 1: of us. We were in these circular tables looking at
Speaker 1: each other across the table going oh, this is just
Speaker 1: a thing, and it's I've read it's not even just
Speaker 1: a woman thing, you know. I think there's something so
Speaker 1: freeing about the fact that imposter syndrome is as universal
Speaker 1: as it is. And the you know, the more we're
Speaker 1: doing something challenging, the more we whatever it comes up
Speaker 1: for us and we think we're not worthy of that place.
Speaker 1: And to just hear that that voice and say, oh, hi, hi, hi,
Speaker 1: you know, I hear you, I see you. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to believe you, you know. And it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: solve it in the moment, but it does allow us
Speaker 1: to begin to have a relationship with that voice that
Speaker 1: isn't antagonistic, that's just saying, oh, you're probably trying to
Speaker 1: protect me, you know. Anyway, that's my feeling about imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: This question is from Michelle. I like this question a lot.
Speaker 1: I like all these questions, but this is great when
Speaker 1: the show must go on and you're entering a space
Speaker 1: where you have to speak to a large crowd, or
Speaker 1: maybe have a weird, awkward conversation with a boss or
Speaker 1: a co worker, or go on stage to perform your
Speaker 1: stand up routine, but you have massive anxiety, or you're
Speaker 1: coming out of a conversation or a moment where the
Speaker 1: brain space that you're in is not in your calmst
Speaker 1: most ideal space. How do you change your state so
Speaker 1: that you can deliver your message clearly and effectively the
Speaker 1: moment before anything that's really high stakes. It's so valuable
Speaker 1: to take a second alone, to meditate for a second
Speaker 1: if you'd like to breathe um with no thoughts, but
Speaker 1: then to also have some really deliberate ones to think
Speaker 1: about the people who bring you so much joy, to
Speaker 1: think about what makes you feel more confident, not less,
Speaker 1: and to also do something with your body, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's listening to you know, your favorite empowered woman's singer.
Speaker 1: I actually I was thinking about this. I would love
Speaker 1: for people to send in what their favorite music is
Speaker 1: right now, and maybe we can make like a Spotify
Speaker 1: playlist of people's favorites, like, um, you know, as you're
Speaker 1: going onto the stage, like what's your you know, theme song,
Speaker 1: and it can keep changing whatever, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: dancing around a little bit like loosening up. I mean
Speaker 1: this can't not sound sexual, but loosening up your hips,
Speaker 1: a little loosening up the space under your arms. When
Speaker 1: we're really uncomfortable, we often sort of, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: pin our elbows to the sides of our bodies if
Speaker 1: we create a little space there. What we're really trying
Speaker 1: to do is um the word trick came to mind.
Speaker 1: It's not quite as manipulative as that, but trick our
Speaker 1: bodies into remembering that open is just as much of
Speaker 1: an option as closed, and closed feels like a you know,
Speaker 1: a go to place when we're scared, but open as
Speaker 1: a go to place when we're when we um, when
Speaker 1: we really want to show our hearts. And the gamble
Speaker 1: that I think many of us um can work our
Speaker 1: way into taking. Whether it's a difficult conversation with one
Speaker 1: person or you know, a complicated talk in front of thousands,
Speaker 1: the gamble is, is that more open version of me,
Speaker 1: with that my heart revealed, going to get what I
Speaker 1: want more? And the answer is probably yes, because probably
Speaker 1: what you want is for people to you know, really
Speaker 1: hear you, whether it's about your product or about yourself
Speaker 1: or about them. So know, what can we do in
Speaker 1: that moment before where we're feeling all that anxiety to
Speaker 1: just get our body to actually do some like opening stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean this is also where like the Amy Cutty
Speaker 1: power pose comes into play, Like, yeah, it's pretty delightful
Speaker 1: to put your hands on your hips and try to
Speaker 1: be wonder woman. But that's also just a thing that
Speaker 1: opens up that exact space I was just talking about
Speaker 1: between your body and your you know, under arms, like
Speaker 1: just finding a way to go. Ah, I will reveal
Speaker 1: myself instead of conceal myself, or I will be open
Speaker 1: instead of closed. And we can do that with all
Speaker 1: the parts of our body, and we can do that
Speaker 1: with our fingers. We can do when we get when
Speaker 1: we get really anxious, everything closes up. So you know,
Speaker 1: on a physical level as well as a mental level,
Speaker 1: we can think about opening. That's all it really is.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is a little bit of nervous
Speaker 1: is okay we've all heard at this point, Like you know,
Speaker 1: you can reframe nervous to be excited. Sometimes that works,
Speaker 1: you know. But also just know that we live in
Speaker 1: a society that is often telling us it's for to
Speaker 1: care less. And I'm really interested in changing that, you know,
Speaker 1: changing our mindset around that because we love to see
Speaker 1: people care, we do it. We'll all lean in when
Speaker 1: we see that someone cares. And nerves is another way
Speaker 1: of saying I care. We can be nervous about something
Speaker 1: that matters to us. We don't have to apologize for it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've I've definitely heard a lot of speeches
Speaker 1: that start with I'm so nervous. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it actually helps to say I'm so nervous, or to
Speaker 1: say who, I'm excited to be here, like everyone knows
Speaker 1: what that means. It means like, wow, I got lots
Speaker 1: of big feelings in my body. We can totally embrace
Speaker 1: I got lots of big feelings in my body. Hi, Hi,
Speaker 1: Hi everybody. Um. And then and then the other thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, if this is if we are talking about
Speaker 1: a talk, then uh, something that I love to remind
Speaker 1: people of. Um, you know, obviously different for different contexts,
Speaker 1: but if there's any way that you can make the
Speaker 1: first thing that happens in your talk be a way
Speaker 1: of engaging your audience, asking them a question, asking for
Speaker 1: a show of hands, or for applause, or for you know, odds,
Speaker 1: if you know who's here because you know who just
Speaker 1: read about blah, blah blah, just getting everybody to be
Speaker 1: in the same room together and to know that like
Speaker 1: we're all sharing a space, we're all breathing together, and
Speaker 1: we're all, you know, part of what's about to happen.
Speaker 1: We'll also calm our nerves because then it's less about
Speaker 1: us and more about them. I took this amazing online
Speaker 1: class from a woman I'm going to have on the
Speaker 1: pot at some point called Feminist Business School. And the
Speaker 1: first rule of Feminist Business school is you have a body.
Speaker 1: There's so much to be said there, but I just
Speaker 1: remind myself of that a comical amount of times. You know,
Speaker 1: I think all of us have the ability to accidentally
Speaker 1: live too much in our heads and to try to
Speaker 1: sort of think our way out of stuff. And often
Speaker 1: our body has way more wisdom than we give it
Speaker 1: credit for, and we don't have to think we can
Speaker 1: like feel our way out of stuff. You know. We
Speaker 1: got some great questions that I think we can kind
Speaker 1: of jam through. Here a Samarrow speed round if you will. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is from Brandon. How do you know so
Speaker 1: many different dialects? Have you traveled a lot or something? Um? So,
Speaker 1: the secret with being a dialect coach is that you
Speaker 1: learn every accent as you go. It is not about
Speaker 1: keeping a billion of them in my head at once.
Speaker 1: It's about, um, knowing what the project in front of
Speaker 1: me requires and then doing like a little bit of
Speaker 1: delightfully nerdy research. You know. I did a project most
Speaker 1: recently before everything got shut down for coronavirus, where I
Speaker 1: was working with two actors who were not from the
Speaker 1: US on a nineteen fifties North Carolina African American vernacular
Speaker 1: accent from two people who were educated and ambitious but
Speaker 1: living on a farmhouse. So that's not like, oh I
Speaker 1: got that one in my back pocket, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean on purpose. The derive, the derive, the whole really,
Speaker 1: the whole idea of our voice reflects our life experience.
Speaker 1: Is that every single person, and this goes for all
Speaker 1: of us, every single person sounds different from every other person.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, really liberating. Especially I have to
Speaker 1: say when I work with actors for whom English is
Speaker 1: their second language, or who are British working on an
Speaker 1: American accent, which you know is the other other half
Speaker 1: of of of the dialect work. Um, you know, if
Speaker 1: there's not one right way to speak, American English. We
Speaker 1: all know this because we don't sound exactly like our parents,
Speaker 1: and we don't sound exactly like our best friend. And
Speaker 1: that is fine, it's cool. I mean, it's revealing of
Speaker 1: how much we are all you know, globalized in terms
Speaker 1: of what we're seeing on our on YouTube, if not
Speaker 1: you know, traveling ourselves, certainly not traveling right now. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it is about breaking down all the
Speaker 1: sounds of a native speaker. I find that seems like
Speaker 1: it's really telling the right story for the project at
Speaker 1: hand and breaking down those sounds using something called the
Speaker 1: International Phonetic Alphabet, which is delightfully useful and a bit
Speaker 1: of a secret code. I think that you actually one
Speaker 1: time wrote my name out in this way or sounded
Speaker 1: my name out in this way. Maybe that's something we
Speaker 1: can share. What's really cool about I P a international alphabet,
Speaker 1: not the beer beers great too? Uh? Is that? Um
Speaker 1: it takes all the guests work out. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's twenty six letters in English. But if you look
Speaker 1: at the letter A in a word you don't know, say, um,
Speaker 1: it literally could be a like apple, all, like father,
Speaker 1: a like long a. It could be about or it
Speaker 1: could be all like, all, how cute. That's five different
Speaker 1: sounds with one symbol. So International Phonetic Alphabet solves that
Speaker 1: by having five different symbols. So it's really annoying to learn.
Speaker 1: But once you know it, you can break down every
Speaker 1: single you know, sound word phrase in this UM secret code,
Speaker 1: and you know it's share able across cultures and linguists
Speaker 1: learn it. Dialect coaches learn it, a lot of actors
Speaker 1: learn it. UM you know, opera singers. I guess I'm
Speaker 1: uh speech pathologists. That's another place that UM International Phonetic
Speaker 1: Alphabet comes in handy and it's so cool. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a learning curve, but so is like learning music
Speaker 1: and then you can play music. Okay, Next question from
Speaker 1: Leslie do you have a mom voice and if so,
Speaker 1: what is it and why? And do you have any
Speaker 1: tips on how to speak with your children in a
Speaker 1: clear and gentle manner but also stand in your power
Speaker 1: when times get wild, especially in these days. Well, I
Speaker 1: did talk about a lot of that before, UM, but
Speaker 1: what can I add? I try as hard as possible
Speaker 1: to make my mom voice and my not mom voice match.
Speaker 1: I really have a physical discomfort with UM talking to
Speaker 1: kids in a voice that feels really young. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: something biological, like they're like, there are studies that show
Speaker 1: that across cultures people talk to babies in the same way,
Speaker 1: and our voice goes up and we make you know,
Speaker 1: a little little cute sing songy sounds, so like whatever.
Speaker 1: I do not mean to demonize any of that, but
Speaker 1: when we're at the point where we're trying to communicate
Speaker 1: with them, like people, I think it's really valuable to
Speaker 1: not just ask them to speak in their strong voice,
Speaker 1: but to use our strong voice back to them. And
Speaker 1: you know, I use the strong voice quote unquote because
Speaker 1: that was, you know, something that I picked up along
Speaker 1: the way. Now I should probably call the strong and
Speaker 1: warm voice. Right, So let's bring us to our next question,
Speaker 1: which has to do it children, which has to do
Speaker 1: with Gavin's question, do you think that birth order plays
Speaker 1: a role in the way that we speak and use
Speaker 1: our voice? Now? Am I not? Totally? It's the same
Speaker 1: thing as part of the I should I should add
Speaker 1: that to my list of stuff I rattle off when
Speaker 1: I say that, you know, your voice is a reflection
Speaker 1: of your life experience. Of course, how did you need
Speaker 1: to get hurt when you were a kid, Literally, what
Speaker 1: did you need to do to get hurt if you're
Speaker 1: an only child? The answer is just different, you know.
Speaker 1: Next question Tomorrow's best opening lines for dating apps like Bumble,
Speaker 1: where the woman messages first, Oh, I like that. I
Speaker 1: just love I just love that. I'm like, suddenly the
Speaker 1: expert in this is. But I will say I met
Speaker 1: my husband online dating, so um, I'll take it. I'm
Speaker 1: clearly an expert. Um. I think that I would love
Speaker 1: to get feedback from people who are on those dating
Speaker 1: apps right now to see what feels really empowering when
Speaker 1: you post an opening. But um, I know that what
Speaker 1: worked for me, and that feels like it's very much
Speaker 1: like in keeping with my my ethos when it comes
Speaker 1: to all this other stuff is I would state my
Speaker 1: intention and also leave it very open ended. I would
Speaker 1: say something like, you seem really great, check out my
Speaker 1: you know whatever, my stuff, and tell me if you agree.
Speaker 1: So that you're you are being vulnerable up talk. You're
Speaker 1: saying I'm interested, but you're also saying, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: take a look at me. If you're not interested in
Speaker 1: me whatever, I've moved on already. So there's a nice
Speaker 1: sort of give and take of being vulnerable, but not
Speaker 1: so vulnerable that you feel like you've given all your
Speaker 1: power away. And I think that's the whole idea with um.
Speaker 1: You know, for steps of a dating app is to
Speaker 1: say I'm I'm open, but I'm not so open you
Speaker 1: can walk all over me. Permission to online date, I say,
Speaker 1: go for it, but not permission to like, you know,
Speaker 1: let it come to fruition quite quite yet, UM, So like,
Speaker 1: maybe don't make your opening so good that you know
Speaker 1: you break your your your social isolation. UM. Truly, I
Speaker 1: love these questions. I love that people are thinking about
Speaker 1: their vocal drama. Obviously there's a possibility I did not
Speaker 1: solve every single person's problem UM with this, But I
Speaker 1: also I mentioned that not to apologize, but to say that, UM,
Speaker 1: even having a space to talk about this stuff to
Speaker 1: sort of um validate that this stuff is real, I
Speaker 1: think is very is very valuable because a lot of
Speaker 1: us just worried that we're the only person who's ever
Speaker 1: wondered about our voice and its power. So you are not.
Speaker 1: I am thinking about it all day every day. UM No,
Speaker 1: but but truly, UM, I'm thrilled to have you guys
Speaker 1: on this journey with me and Cat. I'm thrilled to
Speaker 1: have had you. Um I want to say in my studio,
Speaker 1: but obviously um only in my in my mind. Thank
Speaker 1: you for joining me for this in your zoom chat.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, you zoomed with me so hard. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me, and thank you. Yes to all
Speaker 1: of our listeners, please keep your questions coming, they're so relevant.
Speaker 1: You're in this together. We're all in this together, and
Speaker 1: this is a space where we're creating a real community
Speaker 1: around our voice and how we sound and standing in
Speaker 1: our power. And it's important more than ever or to
Speaker 1: to feel connected and heard and we hear you and
Speaker 1: we we see you. And thank you tomorrow for being
Speaker 1: such a great voice and for sharing all your tips
Speaker 1: my pleasure. I feel like you know what this what this,
Speaker 1: what this time has really felt like for me is
Speaker 1: a reminder, especially when some of our nations leaders are
Speaker 1: making so little sense and are so untrustworthy. It's really
Speaker 1: been like such a lesson in how leadership just is
Speaker 1: not about the title you have. It's about what you're
Speaker 1: doing with your you know, communication, who you're bringing along
Speaker 1: with you, what information you're getting out there for other
Speaker 1: people and you know, just too for all of us
Speaker 1: to feel like Um, whether it's because of crisis or not,
Speaker 1: no matter who we are, we all get to say
Speaker 1: I can be of use to somebody, and I can
Speaker 1: be of used to myself by being of use to somebody.
Speaker 1: And whether we're doing that on Zoom or on you know,
Speaker 1: I G t V or whatever right now, to the
Speaker 1: people in our own lives and our in our small spaces, Um,
Speaker 1: I just want everybody to feel like we have your back.
Speaker 1: We have your back, and what I love about some
Speaker 1: are all of your comments are built upon kindness, and
Speaker 1: that right now is so important to stay kind. So
Speaker 1: stay kind, stay healthy, stay sane. Permission to Speak Who,
Speaker 1: Thank you to everybody who sent in questions, and thank
Speaker 1: you all for listening. I'm throwing a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: we referenced in the show notes this week, and as always,
Speaker 1: check us out at Permission to Speak Pot on Instagram
Speaker 1: or at Permission to Speak pot dot com to submit
Speaker 1: questions for a future mail bag episode, or to submit
Speaker 1: good quotes for the opening, or just to tell me
Speaker 1: what you're feeling. Thanks as well to Sophie Lichtman and
Speaker 1: the team at I Heart Radio My family and cohort
Speaker 1: and all of you. We're recording this podcast at various
Speaker 1: locations around Los Angeles on land that used to belong
Speaker 1: to the Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit us
Speaker 1: d A C dot us to learn more about honoring
Speaker 1: native land. Permission to Speak is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Double Vision, Executive produced by Katherine Burke
Speaker 1: Canton and Mark Canton. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: listen on the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your favorite shows, Jack, Mommy and Daddy.
Speaker 1: You're reporting, Oh hell well,